Little Girls and Scary Monsters
by Wordmage Kazzidae
Summary: After becoming a monster, can you ever truly leave that behind? A Painwheel-centric short story set after the ending of Filia's storyline. UPDATE: Added a second chapter. It has a decidedly different tone from the first, but I hope you'll enjoy it nonetheless.
1. Chapter 1

Carol sat on the edge of her bed, staring down into her guitar case. Of course, there was no guitar actually in it – rather, inside a frame designed to ensure that they did not shift or cut whilst carried, there lay four large sickle-shaped blades.

Carol stared at them.

The last few weeks had been, well... wonderful. In every way. She was living a (relatively) normal life again, she was free of the curse that had stolen her first life from her, and, most importantly, she had her friend back... the best friend she'd ever had. This wasn't to say that Carol had forgotten all the things that had happened before – quite on the contrary, she kept mulling it over in her mind, still trying to connect the dots. What exactly had changed? Why had she been able to go home?

Why was Painwheel... back to being Carol?

The door opened.

"Hey Carol! I got the- oh."

Carol started guiltily. "Filia! I was just, uh-"

"Please, you don't have to explain yourself," said Filia, setting down the milkshakes on a nearby table, "least of all to me. If there's anyone who understands how people can change it's me, isn't that right Samson?"

"...Right," Samson answered cagily, unsure of whether his host was trying to catch him out.

"I just... can't believe it," said Carol, back to staring at the blades with a strange, lost look in her eyes. "It seems like I've been fighting FOREVER to get back to my normal life – to get back to being Carol... and now that I am..."

Filia leaned down to look right into Carol's eyes.

"You miss Painwheel?"

"I-" Carol blinked. "I... do. I really do. It's strange, but... even after everything I went through as her, even knowing how happy I am now that I don't need her anymore... I miss her. I miss that monster. I can't explain it."

Filia smiled kindly. "I can sympathise. Believe it or not, Samson, I think I'd miss you if you went away."

"That ain't happening any time soon, kid," Samson growled protectively.

"And I'm glad of it, even if I don't know the reason why."

Carol looked up at Filia. That same look was still in her eyes.

"Does it mean that... I'm still crazy? That I still haven't healed?"

"You'll never heal completely, Carol. The scars will always be apparent – both the ones on your face and your soul." Carol's hand flew up to her face, her fingers brushing lightly over the marks her stitched-on mask had left behind. "But missing Painwheel isn't necessarily a bad thing, when you think about it."

Carol frowned inquisitively. "What do you mean?"

"Well, even if she was the monstrous side of you, she was still strong. She was your courage in the face of impossible odds: the perverse determination to say no to everyone who attempted to control you, just because you still could. Painwheel is who you are – and who you might still be – when you're backed up against a wall with nowhere else to go. In a very real sense, Painwheel is your inner, most unbreakable strength given form and voice – just like my Samson is." Filia smiled that angelic smile of hers, affectionately twiddling a lock of Samson.

"I don't belong to you, kid," Samson muttered, but not very convincingly.

"...The will to fight," said Carol, very slowly and quietly. "The will to survive."

"But you don't need her anymore – at least, not for now, thank goodness," said Filia, picking up the milkshakes, handing one of them to Carol and taking a seat beside her on the bed. "You no longer have to devote yourself just to surviving: you can truly _live_, as you were meant to. The life that they almost succeeded in robbing from you forever is now yours again. Enjoy it."

Filia began draining her glass with every sign of relish and gusto, but Carol's lay cradled in her lap, still full to the brim. She still stared at the Buer blades, as though trying to stare through time.

"...Sometimes, this doesn't feel real," said Carol. "I feel as though it's all just a dream that Brain Drain's inflicting on me, and when I wake up I'll be back in the Lab and... and this taste of the happiness I could have had... it'll drive me even deeper into insanity."

Filia looked at her friend, and was alarmed to see that the smaller girl's shoulders were shaking.

"Carol! No, no, please don't think that – this is real, VERY real, and I can prove it because-"

Filia paused. Could she really inflict that knowledge on Carol, in her current state?

"How can you prove it?" asked Carol, her desperate need for an answer showing in her face as well.

"...because you're crying," said Filia, smiling sympathetically. Again, Carol reached up to her face, this time to feel the teardrops and look at the wetness on her fingers. "Do you think Painwheel could cry like you're doing now? Do you think she could even _imagine_ it enough to dream about it?"

Carol swallowed the lump in her throat. "I... I guess not..."

"Like you said, she's a monster – a useful monster, one that you'll never throw away and never should – but a monster nonetheless. A monster isn't capable of feeling regret, or guilt, or in this case... sadness. A monster doesn't mourn, nor does it grieve. That is something only a living, thinking, FEELING human being can do: one whose survival is assured, one who has a future to worry about. You're back, Carol, back for good, and don't ever let me catch you doubting it again."

Carol's eyes shot wide. Before she knew what was happening, Filia had thrown her arms around Carol's body, enveloping it in a genuinely open hug completely free of any sense of awkward self-consciousness.

Carol's dry lips finally cracked into a small smile. Filia could be so... improper, sometimes. But in a nice way. She'd been the same even before she'd lost her memories, caring nothing for protocol (which had always bugged the hell out of Carol) but always being very genuine and warm in her expressions (which had exactly the opposite effect on Carol).

"Guh," said Samson under his voice, in a tone of poorly-disguised disgust. "Girly stuff. You know how I feel about you kids getting all touchy-feely with each other." Filia actually chuckled at this, which made Carol smile wider.

"And as I've told you before, perhaps that's something you should've considered when you chose a female host," said Filia roguishly. She gave Carol one last affectionate squeeze before they parted – this simple gesture sent a shiver of delight running down Carol's spine. She couldn't remember the last time someone had been so nice to her...

_NICE? We don't need nice. We don't need this other girl, we don't need that parasite, we don't need ANY of this. We've always survived alone, just you and me..._

Carol's eyes flew to the blades but she hid her horror before Filia could see it, reassuming her smile with barely a flicker. Filia gasped happily.

"Now _that's_ what I wanted to see! I've always said you have the prettiest smile."

"...You used to say that even... before," said Carol, her eyes briefly alighting on Samson.

"Then I guess some things never change." Filia smiled along with her, and it made Carol's heart sing to see a smile so genuinely devoid of any kind of malice or deceit. One could attribute Filia's lack of guile to her lost memories, but Carol suspected that it was something far deeper than that – something that even memories couldn't change, for better or worse.

"Now, aren't you going to finish that milkshake I got for you? If you don't I'll have to do so myself – I do hate seeing good food go to waste." Filia winked at Carol charmingly, causing her to jump, shaken out of her reveries.

"What? Oh! I'm sorry, I'd forgotten all about it," said Carol, raising to her lips the glass she'd been absentmindedly holding in her lap the whole time. She paused. "Although... I wouldn't _mind_ letting you have it, if you'd like another..."

Filia rubbed her upper arm uncomfortably. "Weeell... I _would_ like another, buuut... I'm trying to cut back on sweet things," said Filia, her smile changing to a self-deprecating grin as she stroked the back of her neck (which tickled Samson's underside, causing him to lift up a bit away from Filia's hand). "Not to mention, if anyone deserves a treat, it's you, Carol." That angelic smile again.

"Plus she ain't in any danger of ballooning up like you do, thunder-thighs," Samson remarked to Filia, his great toothy maw stretching into a grin as he chuckled darkly.

Filia gasped, scandalised. "And just WHAT do you mean by that?"

"I like your figure," said Carol a little sadly, observing the frothy bubbles on her milkshake as she gave it a stir with the straw. "It's very round, and full, and soft... everything mine isn't."

"Aw, Carol! I'm sure you'll grow into your body someday – someday soon," said Filia, full of concern. "You've just got to give it a bit of time since you've been so malnourished for so long, so remember to eat regularly and well, you hear me? In fact, it'd be easier for both of us if you ate dinners with me: i could just give you the extra I know I shouldn't eat myself," said Filia, regretfully eyeing Carol's milkshake (she hadn't even touched it yet!).

"Mmm... okay." Apparently satisfied at long last, Carol took the straw to her lips and finally started in on the 'shake. Still, she wore a thoughtful expression as she stared at the blades once again.

_You know you'll never be free of me._

Carol frowned.

'I don't want to be. You're a part of me, remember? We work together.'

_That we do, girl, that we do. Enjoy your new old life while you can, stripling – because when desperation pushes you to the brink of sanity once again – which it will – I'll be there, waiting for you._

_I'm the one who fights in your corner when everyone else has deserted you._

_I'm the unbreakable backbone of your spirit; the last tattered bastion that stands between your mind and complete and total despair._

_I am the last light that shines in the cold void of your heart when all others have gone out, and my colour is blood-red._

_Remember me, Carol. My name is Painwheel, and my face is a mask of rage and death._

_Remember me, and the debt you owe to me..._

_...to yourself..._

"...Hey, skinny kid! You okay? You're kinda zoning out."

Carol snapped back to the present, thanks to Samson's dulcet tones. She'd finished the milkshake and was still attempting to drain the glass – in vain, as it happened, save for some froth left skulking at the bottom.

"Sorry, I was... just remembering something." Carol paused to think for a moment. "Say, Filia?"

"Mmm?"

"Where's the nearest beach?"

"From here? Ooh, um... I guess that'd be the Crescent – about an hour's walk, maybe?"

"Great. Let's go there." Carol stood and strode across the room to the door.

Filia blinked. She looked at Carol in a new light, a confused yet interested smile on her lips.

"You seem to have become very decisive all of a sudden."

Carol smiled back. "Yeah, well... let's just say I feel the need to repay a debt to an old friend. Let's move quickly – I want to get there before the sun goes down, so we can watch it set."

"Ooh, how romantic!" Filia giggled playfully, standing up and smoothing down her skirt – as she looked down to check that it was in order, she saw something.

"Oh, Carol?"

"Hm?"

"Aren't you going to take your... um, your case with you? You normally take it everywhere."

Carol stared at the blades again from across the room.

"...I'll leave them there for now. I can come back and pick them up later, can't I?"

"Of course."

"Then I'd prefer to do that. C'mon, Filia; I'll close the door."

"Right!" Filia bustled across the room as only she could.

Carol looked at the blades one last time as she closed the door.

'That's one cross I don't have to bear... for now. But I promise: I'll always be grateful to you, Painwheel. Even though you're a monster... you were always the monster on my side.'

To the empty room, just as the door slipped closed, Carol whispered "Thank you."

She was gone.

The blades lay silent and still, gleaming inside their case. Although they were obviously weapons, not a speck of the blood that had spattered and caked them barely a month ago remained on their shining metal surfaces.

Their mistress would return. The blades knew this. The struggle for survival never truly ended. Even if Carol was happy to have a brief respite, Painwheel was far from dead.

_Live while you can, Carol. Hopefully, the next time you need me... you'll be fighting for more than just the freedom to live your own life._

The monster sleeps...


	2. Chapter 2

Carol and Filia sat on a rocky promontory overlooking Crescent Beach, watching the sun go down. Its bottom-most edge was just beginning to graze the watery horizon, its reflection painting a shimmering, dancing line of orangey-red light across its surface.

Carol smiled. She liked moments like these. She liked to imagine that, if she stepped out onto the water and walked along the line the sun's reflection made in the water, she could walk along it, all the way to... where? The next horizon? The next continent? The sun itself, perhaps?

No. Happiness had for so long been a thing too far out of reach, but Carol was beginning to accept that it could be here, now, in the simplest of things... like watching the sun set with a dear friend.

"I'm surprised that a place like this exists," said Filia contentedly, absentmindedly picking another daisy and slotting it into Samson. He grumbled resentfully but was pressed up against the bark of a tree along with Filia's back and so couldn't form a coherent rebuttal.

"I found it, when I was still a little girl," said Carol, sitting forward on the grass with her arms around her knees, staring fixedly at that point on the horizon where the sun met the water. "I've always loved coming to the beach, plus my parents found it a nice way to relax and let me run around at the end of a day so I'd be good and tired before bed, so I had plenty of chances to explore. And I found this place... one particularly special day."

Silence reigned for a moment, but it was an entirely comfortable silence. Filia had nothing to say. She knew that Carol probably did but was happy to let her say it, entirely in her own time.

In this place, in this moment, these two girls had all the time in the world.

"...I was messing around at the bottom of the cliff, looking in pools and throwing rocks, when I found this path, naturally carved out of the cliffside. I followed it up. I was barefoot at the time, and the rough rock hurt my feet, but I didn't stop climbing – not until I'd reached the top, and saw...

"...exactly the same thing I'm seeing now: the sun, just barely kissing the horizon. I knew, at that moment, that I was seeing something... magical: a single, special moment, plucked out of the flow of time and presented to me by fate. Up here, standing next to that tree, I felt as though I was at the highest point of the centre of the world. And this moment... this moment was _mine_. Even if they took my liberty and my life, they could never take this memory from me."

The sound of waves, gently washing against the beach and splashing on the base of the cliff. The sound of seagulls, crying off in the distance. The sound of the last few tired beachgoers gathering up their belongings and beginning the journey home.

The sound of Carol realising what she'd just said. She spun around to look at Filia.

"Filia, I'm so sorry, I didn't-!"

"Ssshhh... sh." Filia punctuated this by solemnly and softly placing her finger on Carol's lips. Then, Filia pressed the stem of the daisy she was holding with that hand into the line between Carol's sealed lips, lengthwise.

Not entirely understanding what she was doing or why but feeling nonetheless that it was right, Carol pursed her lips just enough that the daisy was held between her lips.

Filia let her hand come away and smiled at Carol in a slow, calm, almost sleepy way.

Carol gazed back at her. The daisy moved slightly as she too smiled, so softly that she barely distorted her suture scars.

And then, Filia spoke. Her voice was a gentle whisper, barely louder than the breeze, but to Carol Filia's words filled the whole world.

"The memories I've lost... they don't matter to me now. All that matters... All that matters is making new memories; new moments that I'll treasure... just like this one."

Filia leaned forward and, before Carol knew what she was doing, placed her lips on Carol's.

She drew back only a single second later, the daisy clasped between her own lips. Carol's mouth was freed from daisy-carrying duty, but she could do nothing with it save letting it hang open in disbelief.

Filia chuckled, taking the little light flower between thumb and forefinger. "I'm sorry. I'm in a strange mood right now. I might do silly things."

Carol only stared at Filia for a good while, various feelings and thoughts crashing silently into each other inside her head. Eventually, she said, in a hushed voice, "...You've hardly changed at all."

"Did I do silly things when we first met?" asked Filia playfully.

Carol shook her head, her need to be understood all too apparent. "I mean – what you said, about memories not mattering. I think you're right. Forgetting all those things hasn't changed you at all – if anything, it's only made you more like... you."

Filia frowned curiously. "What do you mean?"

"Your old life, the way it was... they tried to make you into what they wanted you to be, so that you could fit into the life they had planned out for you. They couldn't ever succeed, of course, you're just too strong to give in – but nonetheless, it made you... cloudy. Hid who you really were. Who you really are."

Filia paused a moment, staring at Carol in a contemplative way. When she spoke, it was slow and deliberate. "...Who am I really?"

Carol felt a lump in her throat. She swallowed it down. This next move would take more courage than anything she'd ever done as Painwheel.

She reached a hand up towards Filia's face, softly holding her cheek. Filia blinked in surprise, but otherwise remained perfectly still.

"You're the kindest, strongest, most open-hearted person I've ever known. I don't know what I've done to deserve it, but you've always stood up for me, been there with me... risked your life for me. When I was Painwheel I found it impossible to think of anything more than just my own survival, but now... now that I'm with you... I can see myself really living. And not just for myself. Not anymore."

The two girls stared into each other's eyes. Filia's lips were ever-so slightly parted, her breath very shallow and slow, as if afraid that breathing too loudly might interrupt Carol.

"So, no, it isn't silly. In fact, after all the insanity I've been through, it's the one thing in this world that makes any kind of sense. After fighting for so long, fighting to be free, fighting just to be myself again... I've discovered that I don't want to be completely free. I don't want to be by myself.

"I want to be with you."

Filia sat speechless as Carol drew closer and closer.

"I finally have back my body, my mind, my soul... my heart. And, even after all I've been through to get them back, I will willingly give all of them... to you."

When their lips met, the sun was still setting. When their lips finally parted, the two of them lying on the grass in each other's arms, the sun's light was gone from the sky, replaced by the gentle effervescence of the moon and her retinue of constellations. Carol realised that she'd missed seeing the sun set, but she didn't mind. The glow of Filia's smiling face was fully enough to warm her up inside. And as for Filia herself...

She whispered, somewhat breathlessly, "I think it's safe to say that I accept your offer."

The two girls burst out in a fit of giggles.

"But I must make a stipulation," Filia continued, putting on a solemn face. "Because you have trusted yourself to me, I have to promise that I will never mistreat you: I will never try to manipulate you, force you into anything that you don't want, or keep anything from you."

Carol smiled. "Then I promise the same."

Filia smiled back.

Carol was so happy that she felt her heart might just burst open into an endless river of rainbows. But her happiness was rudely interrupted when she realised something.

"What's wrong?" asked Filia, alarmed by the sudden change in Carol's mood.

"...Samson's heard everything we've just said and done, hasn't he?" Carol asked, shocked that she hadn't considered this before saying potentially the most embarassing thing possible to Filia.

However, Filia laughed: a quiet, restful chuckle that made Carol's anxiety sublime into the air like mist before a breeze. "No, no: he's been asleep this whole time. He got bored while we were talking about sunsets and memories other 'girly stuff'." Filia grinned.

"You mean... the two of you don't have to sleep at the same time?"

"You don't know the half of it," said Filia, her grin taking on a rueful aspect. "The number of times he's woken me up just because he was bored of being in a dark room staring at a wall – and don't even get me started on how much he moans if I sleep face-up while he's still awake."

It took Carol a second or two to work out why. "Oh. Right." She smiled at Filia, who reciprocated the expression instantly. It was as though that simple communication of happiness was becoming the ground state of being for the two girls, simply enjoying one another's presence so close at hand.

"Shall we head back, then? Your parents will be worrying about you."

"...I think it's a little too late for me to go home by now," said Carol, in a voice that was at once incredibly nonchalant and infinitely sly. "I hate to impose, but could I possibly stay the night at your place? I'll be a very good houseguest, I promise."

It was easy to see the laughter in the glittering of Filia's eyes. "Are you sure they won't get mad at you?"

"I'll call them when we get back. If they don't like it, that's just too bad for them. C'mon."

Carol stood, extending a hand to Filia. Filia took it, and the two of them walked hand-in-hand all the way back to Filia's place. They said very little, seemingly content just to be together. Many people passed them by, but they didn't exist, not in any real way: the two girls moved through the world inside their own bubble of tranquil contentment, untouched by the fears and trials they'd undergone to reach this place.

And, when they were finally alone together, they really were the only two people in existence: the door firmly locked; all the curtains and blinds shut against the night; the lights in Filia's room dimmed down low, just bright enough that they could look into each other's eyes; the bedcovers encircling the both of them in softness and warmth.

They had the entire night to themselves. They didn't waste it.


End file.
